Give a million monkeys a million typewriters and in a million years they’ll produce the entire works of Shakespearacles. Or, more likely, they’ll start flinging typewriters instead of REDACTED
Moving right along, this here is a collection of speedwriting fics from Trotcon, Everfree Northwest, and other speedwriting contests, the ones that weren’t fit to print. The ideas are the best ideas I could come up with in the short amount of time I was given. Sometimes, in contests like those, you get gold. Other times, the muse shrugs her shoulders, and you get these.
Updated semi-annually, as long as I keep going to cons that have speedwriting contests.
Chapters (14)
This one’s been sitting in the queue for far too long . . . the oldest chapter is a year and a half old (granted, it couldn’t have been published by itself at only 610 words).
When PP said, after this year’s Trotcon, that he was going to review all the Trotcon Speedwriting Fics from 2018 that were published, I decided it was time to collate them all into one story, and that only took six months because reasons. Mostly laziness; that’s the primary reason (after all, they were already written and I had no intention of critically editing them).
So here you go, for your enjoyment, three (for now) examples of what the Admiral can crank out in an hour or two, given a prompt and a typewriter or laptop computer.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/11/20/1590763__safe_artist-colon-nekokevin_starlight+glimmer_twilight+sparkle_4de_alicorn_animated_boop_chair_clothes_computer_computer+mouse_cute_desk_drawi.gif
Source
I find this (presumably) spelling error really funny, it makes me think that Luna packed up all her stuff at some point and hasn't gotten around to unpacking again.
9325019
Yeah, I think this is a typo that should be left as is.
That's hilarious.
9324988
I’m not really sure that Twilight Sparkle is an Input/Output device. Or is this another one *them* fics?
this has a nice start not a lot of zebrican stories that do devolve into sex or war
Well, if the moon is close enough for Celestia to lasso it, then RD can fly to it.
Ah Qualcomm. I had that e-log device back when I drove the Cascadia. Now the Kenworth has the Peoplenet.
You seem confused about the pony's gender for the first couple paragraphs.
Also, you seem to be missing a previous line about the transponder.
Need to correct pronouns.
9325055
Thanks! I plan to expand this at some indefinite point in the future.
9325861
Peoplenet sounds like a poor man’s version of Skynet.
9325984
One of the pitfalls of speedwriting fics; I hadn’t figured out who she was right away. And no time for editing.
Since I’m reasonably familiar with aviation, “Squawk 7777” seemed an obvious enough indication that she should use the transponder for that purpose, but of course most readers would have no idea what that meant. I made a bit of a correction earlier to make it clearer.
9326736
Corrections made; thank you!
9325124
I dunno; what about Twi-Fi?
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/642/518/f42.png
9325610
That was sort of my line of thinking as well.
9325251
Thank you!
As it happens, none of my Zebrican stories devolve into sex or war (although one of them is set during a war, but the Zebras aren’t involved).
9326945
Haha yeah, it’s from a company called Trimble and apparently it has Android software inside it.
9326953
That works :)
9325055
I'll have to show it to my truck driving dad, though I will probably trim it and have to translate it out of pony.
9327974
Some of the jokes don’t work without pony, but I suppose it could be done. Certainly, you could just show him the last part where she’s trying to fly the airplane.
9329485
Yeah, it's the last bit that he'd find amusing.
Given the previous two, I was worried there'd be some kind of flight disastwr in this one as well. Funny how all three follow a theme of air travel. Do you have poor luck when going to conventions?
9346173
I generally have good luck going to conventions. The only one I fly to is EFNW; I drive to Trotcon and Bronycon, since both are reasonably close [I’ve heard in the Midwest, ‘reasonably close’ translates to no more than a ten hour drive]. I think that in the first, I was just considering some convenient plot bunny to get Roseluck and Luna in Zebrica together, and that was a lazy solution. As for the EFNW one, I have no idea why that idea specifically came to me, but after I’d rejected the most obvious path to take with the prompt (to avoid stepping on Rescue Sunstreak’s toes), that was the next best thing that I could come up with.
Since I’ve got a friend who’s a truck driver, I have considered a complete re-write of the idea, one that’s better researched and doesn’t switch narrative POV halfway through.
Did... did the collective ignorance of ponies and people just get a bunch of people killed? At the very least, people are going to get fired for not asking the right questions...
9348013
Yes, it did. Of course, they were doomed anyway, since there were no pilots to fly the plane, but . . .
That’s one of the problems with this story. Like, I think it’s funny, since she’s trying to drive it like a truck, and everybody knows that ponies can’t fly airplanes. But everybody dying at the end (except the pony) is kinda dark . . . I guess it’s very much a YMMV type of story.
9350307
Except the Mythbusters proved that, although it's never actually happened, a flight controller can talk someone who's never flown a plane before through landing it, at least well enough not to kill anyone. So.
9350430
It has actually happened with a private plane, in England (possible more than once). Potentially, a commercial jet might be easier to fly, since it’s got a lot of automatic programs and as long as the pilot configured them correctly, he’d be good to go.
In this case, she thinks she knows how to fly an airplane, and so does the control tower, so she doesn’t get the information that she needs to successfully land the thing.
Yay, I get to see what you wrote with your typewriter!
9366546
Huzzah!
You told me about this... I thought I was prepared.
I was not.
As someone who's around airplanes for a living... this hurt me... HURT ME, ADMIRAL.
9384306
I couldn’t help myself.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/2/19/1660456__safe_artist-colon-inowiseei_oc_oc-colon-lynn_oc+only_car_cute_female_mare_ocbetes_open+mouth_pony_seat_smiling_solo_steering+wheel.png
Never choose fish
9400450
Never. Every time airplane pilots choose fish, it winds up like this.
That last one... lol
In any case, brilliant use of Petunia rediscovering the magic of discovery. Academia comes with some unfortunate baggage in the quest to bring knowledge to all. Sometimes you need to do something to remind yourself why you got into it in the first place.
Somepony needs to talk to some rock farmers. (Though I can't help but think of the idea that continental drift is actually powered by an alicorn on a stationary bike in the planet's core. Can't remember if that was in a story or if I came up with it myself.)
9646031
I'm pretty sure the difference between a yack and a buffalo is altitude.
9730533
Yeah, I think that’s the case.
I... I kinda wanna know what happens next, but that's how your stories always effect me.
I don't usually comment on typos, but I read your blog about the typo on the back cover... so, yeah I couldn't resist.
Ear language! Yes. That should be a big thing. Horses/ponies use a lot of complex non vocal communication as to not alert predators. MORE of this!
You make the cons sound so fun and interesting.
I do love references to the more obscure comics, and this definitely qualifies. Great stuff, both in the uncommon character interactions and the ear language.
9747626
They hang out at the Hayburger for a bit and just talk, and Cheerilee discovers that Vinyl is also a trained violinist. That’s how she met Octavia, you know.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/3/18/273638.jpeg
Oh, please do! If I ever blog about the difficulties in transforming my fimfic stuff to actual paperback, part of the issue was that I migrated it over from FimFiction, since that’s where all the corrected typos are. In most cases, I never fixed them in the gDocs.
The first place I came across something more complex than simply showing emotion (ears back, drooping, etc.) was Rogue Wolf’s Misunderstandings (if you haven’t read that, do), and it was one of those things that was so damn obvious I can’t believe that’s the first place I saw it. You’re right that horses use a lot of non-verbal communication, and there’s no reason that that wouldn’t translate into a form of language for the ponies, sort of the equivalent of sign language. Heck, it might even come more naturally to them.
Oh, they are. You totally gotta get to one whenever you get a chance.
9747877
Funnily enough, as soon as I got the prompt, that’s right where I went. I did have to look up Cherry Blossom’s name, ‘cause I couldn’t remember it.
Thank you!
I can’t take full credit for ear language; I got that from Rogue Wolf’s Misunderstandings, and promptly stuck it in my headcanon, ‘cause it’s so brilliant.
I wants a sequel now, I really want to know what happened to the stars.
Thoroughly adorable.
9786956
Calling it now: The glitter ate them.
9786956
I assume Pinkie Pie had something to do with it.
9789566
Thank you!
Well, that’s a possibility, too.
I should probably go through and fix the tense errors; until I do, I guess y'all can see the original, as-submitted version
Fuck, man... working at a airport, this gives me chills. Shame it was knocked out so early.
Probably should've committed on the type of vehicle, but this was still a good "pressure under fire" story. Though the phrase "control yoke" brought to mind a craft a pony steers with their neck.
Mind you, that's not a complaint.